Jerome M. Hauer, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s director of homeland security, took out his handgun and used the laser sighting device attached to the barrel as a pointer in a presentation to a foreign delegation, according to public officials. It happened Oct. 24 in Albany at the highly secure state emergency operations center below State Police headquarters.

These officials, one of whom claimed to be an eyewitness, said that three Swedish emergency managers in the delegation were rattled when the gun’s laser tracked across one of their heads before Hauer found the map of New York, at which he wanted to point.

In an email to TheDC early Thursday evening, Jerome Hauer personally disputed the Times Union’s story, insisting that only an administrative rule prevents state employees from carrying guns to work, and that he has been granted a waiver. He also says he’s never owned a 9-millimeter Glock.

But if he hadn’t been carrying a gun, why did the Cuomo administration scramble to get him a special waiver exempting him from the law after his behavior came to light?

The Cuomo administration has obtained a waiver to allow the head of the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services to carry a handgun at work.

The required sign-off from a law barring state employees from packing a weapon at their workplace came from the state Office of General Services four days after the Times Union published a story about DHSES Commissioner Jerome M. Hauer using his handgun’s laser sighting attachment as a pointer in a meeting with a Swedish delegation.

Cuomo defended Hauer at a news conference Wednesday. The governor said he’s comfortable with commissioners carrying weapons to work as long as they have gun permits. He qualified the response by adding “if they are licensed and in that field of work.”

Hauer is not a law enforcement officer or working in law enforcement, although his official vehicle has emergency lights and sirens.

Despite the lack of a waiver before January, several witnesses said he has been carrying a gun on the job since Cuomo appointed him in 2011.

Note that the apparent criteria for carrying a gun is whether Cuomo is your buddy and hired you for a government job. The Times Union goes on to report that State Police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico declined to issue a waiver, so the administration went to the only other person authorized to give one—General Services Commissioner RoAnn Destito. Nice to see Hauer is covered by the David Gregory Exception to Gun Laws, which covers prominent law breakers of a left-leaning persuasion who know a bunch of powerful people.

Only people who should own guns in a civilized modern society are cops and soldiers.

this is not the wild wild west, no citizen NEEDS a gun to live.

nonpartisan on February 12, 2014 at 10:10 PM

Schadenfreude on February 13, 2014 at 10:05 PM

We need guns to put down unlawful Regimes headed by Tyrants who take an elected office in the Republic and try to turn it into a Dictatorship…

That is the PURPOSE of the 2nd Amendment, and the reason why the Founders thought it important enough to include right after freedom of speech and religion, yet BEFORE the protection against unlawful search and the right to not be forced to testify against oneself…

Yeah this is the same kind of turd who’d slap cuffs on you for being in possession of a pocket knife with a blade length of over an inch and a half. Then turn around and ignore a Muslim carrying a bag of fertilizer and a gallon of diesel.

If Kristie Kreme hadn’t bear hugged his BFF Obama days before the 2012 election, chances are we would be using the “hypocrisy!” argument against the LSM. Like Richard Maddow or Christine Hayes would report on this…

As for Cuomo, he may just be the closest thing to a fascist leader this country has had since Huey Long ran Louisiana.

“There is more that binds us to Bolshevism than separates us from it. There is, above all, genuine, revolutionary feeling, which is alive everywhere in Russia except where there are Jewish Marxists. I have always made allowance for this circumstance, and given orders that former Communists are to be admitted to the party at once. The petit bourgeois Social-Democrat and the trade-union boss will never make a National Socialist, but the Communists always will.” – Adolf Hitler

The guy used the lazer mounted on his weapon as a pointer in a meeting? I have been involved with weapons ever since I got a BB gun at age 6, and have carried one most of my adult life. This has got to be the most immature acts that I have ever heard committed with a firearm. If all the leftys think this is how people handle weapons, no wonder they want to take them away.

And to be frank, all RINOs should be labeled as totalitarian-lites. It would be more effective than calling them statists. Just call them out for who they are.

Communism is a SUBTYPE of fascism.

ConstantineXI on February 13, 2014 at 10:34 PM

Yes. But that’s kinda my point… we shouldn’t be confusing the two.

DiBlasio is like Stalin, while Cuomo is like Mussolini.

I said that Cuomo is the closest thing to a fascist leader the US has ever had since Huey Long. Of course the US has had communists like Wilson, FDR and Obama… they just lie and say they are “liberals.”

Does that mean that Catholics and Protestants aren’t Christian…or Irish?

sharrukin on February 13, 2014 at 10:49 PM

No. You’re kinda reading too much into this.

Facism and communism are from the same political spectrum, and both have deep roots in Socialism. I was trying to say that, while both Cuomo and DiBlasio are extraordinarily horrible, Cuomo is worse because he is showing himself to be a fascist.

These officials, one of whom claimed to be an eyewitness, said that three Swedish emergency managers in the delegation were rattled when the gun’s laser tracked across one of their heads…

They were right to be rattled. His attention to gun safety is as poor as his attention to the law.

The rules, the regulations and the laws that leftists promote are ALWAYS intended for others to obey…never themselves.

sharrukin on February 13, 2014 at 10:13 PM

Yeah, and in this case, it’s not just a written rule or law, it’s COMMON SENSE that you don’t point a gun at another person unless you intend to shoot them. But then, no one ever accused the left of exercising common sense.

The person with the gun is dangerously stupid. He needs to have all of his guns confiscated and spend some time behind bars for terroristic threatening.

Cuomo defended Hauer at a news conference Wednesday. The governor said he’s comfortable with commissioners carrying weapons to work as long as they have gun permits. He qualified the response by adding “if they are licensed and in that field of work.”

Hauer is not a law enforcement officer or working in law enforcement, although his official vehicle has emergency lights and sirens.

Now that’s hilarious. Are we sure this article wasn’t written by Larry the Cable Guy?

The required sign-off from a law barring state employees from packing a weapon at their workplace came from the state Office of General Services four days after the Times Union published a story about DHSES Commissioner Jerome M. Hauer using his handgun’s laser sighting attachment as a pointer in a meeting with a Swedish delegation.

Cuomo defended Hauer at a news conference Wednesday. The governor said he’s comfortable with commissioners carrying weapons to work as long as they have gun permits. He qualified the response by adding “if they are licensed and in that field of work.”

So Cuomo is saying that Hauer is licensed and in the acting-an-idiot-with-a-gun business?

I love the fact that on this thread the Mussolini vs Hitler argument is taking place! Mussolini’s claim to fame is “making the trains run on time” while Cuomo is doing everything he can to retard progress (fracking, driving business outta state while running ridiculous tax free zone ads, ad nauseum ad infinitum) and william wilbert has a large lefty jewish base! You guys are funnier than People’s Cube!

Actually Mussolini was famous for being a failed fascist dictator who was hung by his own people. He may have claimed to make the trains run on time but as always, that was inaccurate to say the least.
The train industry did improve from the state into which it had sunk during World War 1, this was largely down to improvements implemented before Mussolini came to power in 1922. This didn’t matter to Mussolini, who was quick to claim any credit.

I read, I think in Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, that during an engineer strike the Fascists just took over the empty engines and ran the trains on time (showing, BTW, how easy it was and therefore how over-rated the job was). This was however, before they actually took power. It was a PR stunt.

This is why fascists love to have as many laws passed as possible. At some point the people they do not agree with will break them and they can be prosecuted, while their friends…well we see what happens to their friends.

NOTE: I refuse to call the leftists “liberals”, since true liberals at one time believed in liberty and tolerance. What is happening now reminds me more of 1920s and 1930s Germany, with the demonization of opponents, compliant press, and the people mindlessly turning their lives over to the government.

Can you even imagine the outcry if a Republican appointee did this? Cuomo would be fighting for his political life right now, and he’d be losing. If Christie gets in trouble for heavy traffic on the bridge, hahahaha, then what would be a proportional response to this little non-story? Exile?

This is why fascists love to have as many laws passed as possible. At some point the people they do not agree with will break them and they can be prosecuted, while their friends…well we see what happens to their friends…….
Micah68 on February 14, 2014 at 10:01 AM

“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.”

I wonder if any of those folks in Connecticut who are flouting the new “assault rifle” law would not only get an expedited waiver to allow them to keep owning it, but that the waiver would somehow magically eliminate the problem of them having been in violation of the law in the first place?!?!?